Manny Ruiz, 62, retired suburban Cleveland woodshop teacher, picks at a crumb of fried hushpuppy on the edge of his paper plate and stares at the dented Pabst Blue Ribbon can in front of him. The VFW post’s cinder block walls hum with the noise of 40 or so locals, the air thick with the smell of cod grease, tangy tartar sauce, and old cigarette smoke stuck in the ceiling tiles. He only showed up tonight because Ron, his old department head, threatened to drop off a truckload of warped pine at his garage if he bailed again, and he brought the hand-carved bluebird house he’d spent three weeks sanding and staining for the silent auction, mostly to get Ron off his back about “putting his work out there.” He’s half ready to sneak out the back door when a shadow falls over his table.
He looks up. Elara Marquez. Diane’s cousin. He hasn’t seen her in 12 years, not since Diane’s sister’s wedding in 2011, when she’d flown in from Oregon and hugged him so tight he could smell pine sap in her hair. She’s 58 now, a thick streak of silver cutting through the dark wavy hair she’s pulled back in a loose braid, wearing a faded olive linen button down, frayed cutoff jeans, and scuffed work boots caked with mud. She’s holding a paper plate stacked high with catfish and coleslaw, and she grins when he meets her eye, no awkward pity, no soft “how are you holding up” that he’s grown to hate from everyone else in town.
She yanks out the plastic chair across from him without asking, sits so close their knees brush under the table. He freezes for half a second, then forces himself not to yank his leg away. “Saw your birdhouse in the auction lineup,” she says, popping a piece of catfish in her mouth. “Put a $40 bid on it ten minutes ago. No one’s gonna outbid me. I’ve got an oak tree in my backyard that’s been missing something.” Her voice is lower than he remembers, rougher around the edges from years of yelling at hikers to stay off restricted trails. When she reaches across the table to grab a handful of napkins from the stack next to his elbow, her forearm brushes his, sun-warmed, a faint white scar wrapping around her wrist from the time he let her ride his dirt bike when they were 19 and she crashed into a ditch.
He doesn’t say anything for a minute, his chest tight. He’s spent four years actively avoiding any situation that might make him feel like he’s not honoring Diane’s memory, turning down setups from his sister-in-law, skipping the weekly poker games his old students invited him to, even refusing to buy a new couch because Diane picked out the lumpy one in his living room. Elara is family, for Christ’s sake, he shouldn’t be noticing the way the top two buttons of her shirt are undone, the way she laughs so hard she snorts when he tells her about the time a freshman glued his hand to a table saw in 2017. But he is. He can’t stop staring at the scar on her wrist, at the way she tucks a stray piece of hair behind her ear when she’s listening, at the way her knee keeps pressing into his under the table, not on accident, not anymore.
The auction wraps up an hour later, and sure enough, she wins the birdhouse. She slings the burlap-wrapped wooden box over her shoulder like it’s a backpack, and nods toward the back door. “C’mon. My truck’s parked down by the creek. I’ll walk you to your car if you want, or you can come sit for a minute. The fireflies are out.” He doesn’t hesitate, even though the voice in the back of his head is screaming that this is wrong, that he’s betraying the 38 years he had with Diane, that everyone at the post will talk if they see them leaving together. He follows her out the door, the humid August air wrapping around him, crickets chirping loud in the grass, the sky pink and orange at the horizon.
They stop at the edge of the creek, the water gurgling soft over the smooth rocks. She sets the birdhouse down on a fallen log, turns to him, and he can see the faint freckles across her nose in the fading light. “I know this is weird,” she says, her voice quieter now, no teasing left. “I didn’t want to say anything when I first moved back, because I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable. But I’ve thought about you a lot, ever since I heard about Diane. I didn’t just bid on that birdhouse because it’s nice.” She lifts her hand, brushes a fleck of sawdust off the shoulder of his flannel shirt, her calloused fingers grazing his neck for half a second. He doesn’t pull away. He leans in, slow, like he’s approaching a skittish deer, and kisses her. She tastes like lemonade and fried catfish, her hand coming up to cup his jaw, and for the first time in four years, he doesn’t feel guilty for feeling happy.
When they pull apart, she laughs, soft, and picks the birdhouse back up. “You wanna come over tomorrow? Help me hang it? I make really good pancakes. Blueberry, Diane’s favorite.” He nods, his throat too tight to talk. They walk to her beat-up Ford Ranger, she unlocks the door, and when she slides into the driver’s seat, she rests her hand on the center console, palm up, an inch away from his. He laces his calloused woodworker’s fingers through hers.
